The risk of a patient falling from a bed, chair, or other supporting structure is an important concern for those responsible for providing patient care. While patient falls are not always serious, the possibility of additional injuries to the patient, and the potential liabilities for caregivers makes avoiding patient falls an important concern.
Patients who fall may experience considerable pain and discomfort and may require additional time to heel old injuries that have been aggravated by the fall, or new injuries caused by the event itself. For healthcare providers, patient falls generally mean additional costs, some or all of which the facility may be forced to write-off. For insurance companies, the additional risk of injury from patient falls increases costs making it generally more expensive to provide health coverage to patients and liability insurance for hospitals and caregivers.
In some cases, monitoring equipment may be used to aid caregivers in determining when a patient may soon fall. Such equipment may interact with sensors in the patient's room, or mounted on the patient's body. Mounting devices for this equipment can be helpful for maintaining a secure and reliable connection between the monitoring device and the sensors, preferably without requiring specialized clothing that may be uncomfortable or easily damaged by the patient's normal movements. Preferably, such monitoring and mounting equipment is comfortable to wear and unobtrusive for the patient.
Thus patients, caregivers, and medical institutions would benefit from monitoring systems that can predict when a patient is about to fall that are easily installed and maintained.